Electroless plating is widely used as an industrial technique which can change non-conductive base material surfaces such as those of plastics, ceramics, paper, glass, and fibers into conductive surfaces. Especially when a surface of non-conductive base material is electrolytically plated, the non-conductive base material is electrolessly plated as a pretreatment for the electrolytic plating.
However, it is difficult to form electroless plate directly on a surface of non-conductive base material. This is because it is difficult to make a catalyst layer adhere to a base material surface as a pretreatment for electroless plating, since the base material surface of the non-conductive base material is smooth.
Therefore, surface of the non-conductive base material is conventionally roughened by a mechanical treatment or chemical treatment to enable a catalyst to adhere to the base material surface. However, if surface of the base material is roughened, the material as a whole becomes opaque, and therefore a problem arises that it comes to be unsuitable for use requiring transparency.
As means for solving this problem, there has been proposed a method of forming a gelatinous thin membrane containing a water-soluble polymer (catalyst adhering layer) on a non-conductive base material (Patent document 1).    Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication (KOKAI) No. 2002-220677 (claims)